{"id":909402,"date":"2026-05-30T15:17:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T20:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/30\/i-didnt-think-pat-would-be-our-guitar-player-i-just-sent-him-a-tape-and-he-was-like-oh-my-god-its-so-poppy-how-pat-smear-surprised-dave-grohl\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T15:17:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T20:17:26","slug":"i-didnt-think-pat-would-be-our-guitar-player-i-just-sent-him-a-tape-and-he-was-like-oh-my-god-its-so-poppy-how-pat-smear-surprised-dave-grohl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/30\/i-didnt-think-pat-would-be-our-guitar-player-i-just-sent-him-a-tape-and-he-was-like-oh-my-god-its-so-poppy-how-pat-smear-surprised-dave-grohl\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI didn\u2019t think Pat would be our guitar player. I just sent him a tape. And he was like, \u2018Oh my god, it\u2019s so poppy\u2019\u201d: How Pat Smear surprised Dave Grohl and joined the Foo Fighters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Music <\/p>\n

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Dave Grohl<\/a> wanted to get back making music after the tragic end of Nirvana<\/a>. He had ideas and had written some songs and put them onto tape. But he needed a guitarist. The big question was, who was he going to get in the band?<\/p>\n

Speaking to Apple Music\u2019s Zane Lowe, Grohl describes his headspace in the months following Kurt Cobain<\/a>\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

The manner of Nirvana\u2019s ending sent Grohl and bassist Krist Novoselic into survival mode.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that we all wound up in places that felt… I don\u2019t want to say comfortable, but safe,\u201d recalls Grohl. \u201cAnd so when I went into the studio and recorded that stuff by myself, I felt safe there. And I can\u2019t speak for Krist, but I think at that time it was like we were just trying to get our feet back on the ground. For me, that\u2019s something that I thought, ‘Okay, well, music is the thing that\u2019s going to rescue me.’\u201d<\/p>\n

The Foo Fighters<\/a> frontman believes Novoselic found his feet by taking a step back from music and regrouping. And Grohl didn\u2019t push him. \u201cWe didn\u2019t really ever have that deeper, longer conversation,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

If getting a band back together was part of the process for putting his heart back together, Grohl would have to start recruiting. Everyone knew him as the drummer from Nirvana. The last full-length album he released was In Utero<\/em> and that was Seattle trio at their most confrontational.<\/p>\n

The songs Grohl was putting together, none of them sounded like Scentless Apprentice<\/em>. These were, well, poppy. And he\u2019d have asked Nirvana live guitarist Pat Smear<\/a> if he wanted to play in this band he was going to call the Foo Fighters, but no way would he say yes.<\/p>\n

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All the latest guitar news, interviews, lessons, reviews, deals and more, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

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Foo Fighters – Window (Official Video) – YouTube<\/span>
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\u201cThe funniest thing is like, I didn’t think Pat would be our guitar player. I just sent him a tape. I sent him one of the early cassettes,\u201d says Grohl, expecting\u2026 Well, Pat Smear is a punk at heart. Grohl expected a polite thanks but no thanks. Smear was duly shocked. But his reaction was altogether more positive than Grohl could have hoped for.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was like, \u2018Oh my God, it\u2019s so poppy.\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018Is it? Okay, is that a good thing?\u2019 And to Pat, that is a great thing,\u201d says Grohl. \u201cI was like, and I had already started jamming with Nate [Mendel, bass guitar] and William [Goldsmith, drums] and I was like, \u2018Hey if you want to play guitar\u2026 I didn\u2019t expect that he would, you know. And then he decided that he would jam with us. And it was great.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Foo Fighters: The Your Favorite Toy Interview | Zane Lowe Interview – YouTube<\/span>
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The rest is history. The Foo Fighters returned with their 12th studio album, Your Favorite Toy<\/em>, which is out now via RCA, their first to feature new drummer Ilan Rubin. Following the death of Taylor Hawkins in 2022, Grohl recorded all the drum parts for 2023\u2019s But Here We Are.<\/em><\/p>\n

In conversation with Lowe, Grohl reflects on what it\u2019s like to have a back catalog that he felt was almost out of bounds, songs that he was scared to revisit \u2013 for any number of reasons but especially the obvious one, that playing something of, say, Nevermind<\/em> was going to be too painful.<\/p>\n

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Foo Fighters – Amen, Caveman (Lyric Video) – YouTube<\/span>
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But he says there is nothing quite like those occasions when he, Novoselic and Smear have got together to perform Nirvana tracks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s such a weird thing to feel afraid to play songs. And for a long time it’s like I was even afraid just to sit down at a drum set and play the opening riff to Smells Like Teen Spirit<\/em>,\u201d he says \u201cIt just seemed sort of forbidden. And so the few times that Krist and Pat and I have gotten together to do it, it\u2019s a trip\u2026 the noise that the three of us make together, you don\u2019t really get that noise anywhere else.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way that Krist strums his bass lines, the bass that he uses, the equipment he uses, his sense of feel and time, it\u2019s like all of those things combined with Pat like with that crazy Germs\/Pat Smear guitar thing. And then some loud-ass drums, when it happens, you’re just like, oh fuck, I remember this. Shit, I haven\u2019t heard this in 35 years. It\u2019s a really beautiful sound and a beautiful feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

You can watch\/listen to the full Dave Grohl interview on The Zane Lowe Show on Apple Music<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Jonathan Horsley has been writing about guitars since 2005, playing them since 1990, and regularly contributes to publications including Guitar World, MusicRadar and Total Guitar. He uses Jazz III nylon picks, 10s during the week, 9s at the weekend, and shamefully still struggles with rhythm figure one of Van Halen\u2019s Panama.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Music (Image credit: Kevin Mazur\/Getty Images for Foo Fighters) Dave Grohl wanted to get back making music after the tragic end of Nirvana. He had ideas and had written some songs and put them onto tape. But he needed a guitarist. The big question was, who was he going to get in the band? Speaking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":909403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[131522],"class_list":["post-909402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business-news","tag-podcast-music"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=909402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/909403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}